


The Other Life

by motelsamndean (whalesandfails)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:20:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27251830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalesandfails/pseuds/motelsamndean
Summary: What if the stanford fight had gone differently?
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 77





	The Other Life

Two days before Sam left, Dean found the letter. And when Sam shouldered his bag and squared his shoulders and told him and Dad that he was accepted to Stanford and he was going, John raged. But Dean – Dean didn’t. He already had a bag packed himself, slung it across his back saying, “call me for hunts, but I’m getting a place in Santa Clara.”   
And it was as easy as that. Dean was a twenty-minute drive away in San Jose, living on top of the auto shop he worked in part time. He was gone sometimes, for weeks at a time, coming home with a few scars and scratches on Baby, but he had a hub, one Sam could come home to.   
Which Sam did. Often. Flying through the door with textbooks and a six pack of beer. And after his first two years, he applied to law school. And he did meet Jess; but only for a little while, only for a breath of a moment. And she certainly didn’t burn to a crisp on his ceiling.   
Sam never lived with Dean, but he might as well have. As the years progressed, his dorms got less and less use, spending first weekends then some weeknights at his brother’s place. First on the couch, then head to toe on the single mattress, then tangled limbs. He went from not telling people where he went on weekends to telling them he was going to his brother’s, to mumbling a slurred Frankenstein word of brother-partner-lover-boyfriend when pestered.   
They didn’t share friends, but they didn’t need to. Sam had a key that jangled whenever he took the rapid transit line from Stanford to San Jose, a reminder that he was going home. Sam had a side of the bed and a night table with a book he hadn’t liked so had been sitting there for months. Sam had a grin so wide and bright everyone succumbed to it, he was called the shining star of law. Sam had Dean.   
Dad never came to visit, the rift between him and Sam never healed. But Dean and Dad hunted regularly together, and tracking and killing the demon was a group effort, one that led to no bloodshed, no demon deals, no death. Dean never went to hell, Sam was never the boyking, Dad died from a Shinigami attack a month before Sam passed the bar. Sam aged more gracefully than most, and Dean’s body bent in on itself from all the hard years, but he got cards from the people he saved, and their wedding photos and baby photos littered his fridge. It was a simple life, one where the darkest parts of the night were illuminated with shining light.   
\--  
At least, these were things Dean told himself, when Dad wasn’t answering his phones and he didn’t have the guts to dial Sammy’s dorm only to hang up before he could ask to speak to his baby brother. Dean regretted not following Sam out the door, not forcing his way after Dad even without Sam as an anchor to guide them home again. Dean imagined it, a hundred, thousand ways: the way he would assuage Dad’s concern, the way he would stand by Sam, the bag he would pack, if he would leave Baby. There were a thousand scenarios, but he was sure he was stuck with the worst one (couldn’t think – couldn’t imagine – the only other worse option than them fragmented – at least they were alive, they were whole). He would lie alone and dream of all the pasts he could have lived, all the futures he could have had. But he was alone, and he soldiered on.


End file.
